The invention pertains to animal feeders of the automatic type, wherein animals, such as dairy cows, may be fed different feed supplement components concurrently from respective feed dispensers, and wherein the feed is dispensed from a movable cart and the dispensing is controlled by a microprocessor system mounted on the cart.
In order to maintain a healthy dairy herd and achieve maximum milk production it is now known that it is necessary to provide a feed dispensing apparatus which controls supplemental feed to predetermined cows. Cows in a herd each have different feed requirements and individual lactic feed cycles. Therefore, each of the cows should be fed different amounts of feed supplement for maximum benefit to the cow and maximum output from that cow. Frequently, two separate feed supple ments are fed to the herd. Accordingly, it is desirable to control the amount of each of the feed complements provided to each cow. For example, if there are 200 cows in the herd, prefer ably 400 different individual portions of supple mental feed should be provided.